


All The Right Moves

by tunglo



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 06:49:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11641200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tunglo/pseuds/tunglo
Summary: Ed pays attention to Jim - Jim takes note of Ed in return.





	All The Right Moves

**Author's Note:**

> Finally filled a Tumblr prompt asking for some fluffy RiddlerGordon - _I would love to read something with Ed from s1 or s2 being lowkey obsessed with Jim but thinking Jim doesn't even notice him (a bit like with Kristen minus the creepy parts) but Jim does notice and is really drawn to him for some reason :)_

Jim Gordon was different to the rest of them.

Better than the rest of them.

That was the conclusion Ed came to within three seconds or so of meeting him. It was the conclusion he only had bolstered at every subsequent encounter because Jim lived up rather than down to expectations.

He was clever - intelligent enough not to need him to explain his riddles, and quick enough to piece the jigsaw together while Bullock and the other idiots were still standing around and wondering which of their informants could be bribed into coming forward and making a false statement.

He was good - didn’t grease his palms or disappear for hours on the clock, dousing his senses in some dive bar or paying some dead eyed junkie to take a walk down some stinking back alley with him.

Jim didn’t need to. Jim was strong willed and kind hearted. Straight backed and blue eyed. Jim was something worth looking at, something worth studying, and Ed applied himself to the subject thoroughly. He combed through Jim’s files and engineered chance opportunities to talk to his old schoolmates. 

He watched and observed and hovered just close enough at crime scenes to catalog Jim’s cologne and his laundry detergent. The soap he used, and how it changed after Barbara moved out of Jim’s life the way she was always supposed to, and he found an excuse to wind himself around the shorter man, if only for a moment.

“If you ever wish to talk,” he offered once, standing beside Jim in the deserted men’s room of the precinct. Jim nodded stiltedly and moved to wash his hands, the furrow in his brow soothing just for an instant when their gaze met in the over sink mirror.

The exchange left him jittery and off kilter. Keyed up and overly anxious, the way he felt every time he attempted to make conversation with beautiful people who couldn’t be less interested. Miss Kringle failed even to acknowledge him as they passed in the corridor, and the shame of it all stung so deeply he spent a half hour chopping samples into precise slivers, just to recenter his equilibrium.

But Jim was different. Jim was _special_ , and when their paths crossed at the grocery store nearest to Jim’s new apartment, Jim didn’t simply look the other way and pretend he hadn’t seen him.

“There doesn’t seem any point buying fresh,” Jim said in response to the way he was eyeing up the cans in Jim’s basket, mentally organizing them into likely meal combinations, “I’m never home enough to eat it.”

Ed tilted his head to the side, considering, and the following day left Jim lunch on his desk, all nondescript brown paper bag and careful avoidance of fingerprints.

He was careful, fastidious, and he watched in satisfaction when Jim peered around the room in confusion. Smiled happily to himself all afternoon, and hummed over the corpse of some low level mob associate, content in the knowledge that Jim wouldn’t need any hint about their guest’s former occupation.

Jim didn’t disappoint him. Made all the connections and was off on the trail, Bullock still huffing and panting from the trip down to the basement.

He heard later that Jim had made an arrest, the whole problem neatly solved with a sworn confession, and when he congratulated Jim, daring to press a quarter inch closer into the other man’s personal space, Jim’s frown became a smile that made his stomach flutter.

Because perhaps even he had underestimated Jim. Even he had been too proud and complacent, because Jim paid attention where others were careless. Was dogged where others threw in the towel. Saw straight through all his painstaking preparations and finally caught him in the act, the back of his neck damp with sweat as he worked open the door of Jim’s locker.

“You didn’t have to go to so much trouble. I don’t bite, you know.”

There was something about the way Jim said it. A glint in his eye and a heat in his tone. A hint of a smile on his lips and a hand on his arm, strong but non-threatening.

“You will need to bite,” Ed offered, caught in the surreality of the moment, “you could choke otherwise.”

Anyone else would have looked at him in confusion. They would have scowled or mocked or simply waited for him to explain himself. Jim just glanced at the package in his hand - at the misleading shape and the equal lengths of tape fixing the wrapping paper - and gave him another of those smiles that set his own face to overheating.

“In that case, it might be best if you helped me eat them.”

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, feel free to chat / hit me with prompts over on Tumblr [@serenwib](http://serenwib.tumblr.com/) or Twitter [@falsteloj](https://twitter.com/falsteloj). :)


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